Area county officials reported a variety of problems in the wake of Hurricane Isaac.

     Main problems included a lack of power in many areas and fallen trees blocking roads.

     In Lawrence County, Sheriff Joel Thames said around 45 trees were down throughout the county, along with multiple power lines, early Thursday.

     “We’re working hard to clear the roads at the moment,” said Thames. “We’re waiting on Entergy to come in a clear power lines off some roads before we can move the trees.”

     Thames said he did not have any reports of flooding, but that could change.

     “The streams and rivers are definitely on the rise,” he said.

     Despite the rain and falling trees, Thames said he had no reports of storm-related injuries.

     In Copiah County, Civil Defense Director Randle Drane said Isaac left an assortment of problems and caused at least two minor injuries.

     Drane said there were 75 reports of trees down throughout the county, some with power lines tangled in them. Multiple trees have fallen on homes and some low-lying areas are taking on water after torrential rains passed through the area.

     “I’m sure the flooding will spread throughout the day,” he said. “The flooding is all over in low-lying areas. We’ll continue to have trees fall throughout the day.”

     Drane also reported an incident where two county employees were injured during the storm.

     A county vehicle that was trying to help clear roadways ran into a fallen tree on Highway 51 sometime Wednesday. It damaged the truck and the workers were transported to the hospital where they were treated and released.

     Hurricane Isaac wasn’t worse than Drane expected, but it was the amount of time it stayed in the area that caused the problems.

     “It was just slow getting here, not worse than I thought,” said Drane. “It was delayed in leaving us for about 12 hours. I was hoping this would be gone by now, but it just sat there and spun and crawled along.”

     Sheriff James Newman in Franklin County said no fatalities have been reported so far, and he is not aware of any major damage to homes from falling trees or limbs.

     “Power lines are down in many places,” he said. “Rural roads have a good many trees scattered on them. Other roads also have trees down. We probably had about 25 calls about trees blocking roads, but those are beginning to be cleared.”

     Newman said the damage wasn’t enormous, but described it as an inconvenience.

     “There is no major damage, but it will take a while to clean it up,” he said. “It could be a lot worse, it’s just a big inconvenience right now.”

     Newman said he is not aware of any flooding as of Thursday morning.

     Meadville and Bude remain without power, but Newman said the power company is working in that area to restore power. Newman said he understands about 80 percent of the county is without power at this time.

     “I’m sure once the storm moves away, they’ll be out in force restoring power,” he said.

     All in all, Newman said Hurricane Isaac was not worse than they thought.

     “It’s not worse than we expected, it’s just a major inconvenience,” he said. “We can clean this up and keep moving.”